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Thread: Building a Nieuport 11...

  1. #961
    Dana's Avatar
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    I filled my Kolb by pressurizing a 5 gallon gas can with a foot pump (the kind made for air mattresses). I did some measuring, and a sealed gas can ballooning up in the summer sun gets up around 5psi so that much is obviously safe for the can, and is plenty to push the fuel up to my tanks. A hose and a brass ball valve, and a homemade fitting to hook the hose through the cap, were the only other parts.

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  2. #962

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    All great solutions!

    Out at the airport, I discovered I'm going to need something higher than my folding ladder to hold the fuel up high enough to gravity feed with any sort of flow. Hmmm...

    Fuel tank is back into the aircraft, and my boat fuel filler neck is going to work out great. Lines were run for the sight gauge, so here's what's left:

    1) Make the actual sight gauge, which is a piece of U channel aluminum that will hold my clear line (tybex, I think it's called?), and plumb it in.
    2) Make a nice little patch that will go over the Big Ugly Hole in the top panel of the fuselage I made to get the fuel neck to fit right.
    3) Calibrate the sight gauge and mark it (while checking for any leaks!).
    4) Put the sheeting back on the aircraft, clean it up and touch up paint.
    5) Put the wings back on, check rigging, including doing a much, much, much better job safety wiring the turnbuckles.
    6) Write it all up in the log and go fly!
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

  3. #963
    Tralika's Avatar
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    I bought one of these Terapumps from Amazon last year. I used it for about 70 hours of flight time on my plane (5-6 gph) and it still works fine. It lift's the fuel from the ground to the tank in the high wing plane with no problem. I'm not using it now because I got tired of dealing with the 5 gallon fuel cans so I switched to a 30 gal barrel and a bigger pump. The feed tube on this pump is not long enough to work with the 30 gal barrel.

    https://www.amazon.com/TeraPump-TREP...s%2C247&sr=8-5

  4. #964

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    That's pretty slick! The whole issue of my wonder gas can was to measure how much fuel I am putting in the tank - and I want to thank everyone for showing how they do it!

    Sight gauge is plumbed, along with the vent line (I now have one that puts overflow outside of the aircraft instead of into the cockpit), and the sight gauge is calibrated.

    A few notes:

    1) It's a ten gallon tank. Robert had said it was twelve-ish, but I think he was referring to the full scale N17 tank.

    2) Because of the angle of the sight gauge to the right on the fuselage, it's very easy to see the meniscus of the top of the fuel, as one is looking down onto it. Simple marks on the white U channel every two gallons works really well. It looks suitably rustic for my tastes.

    3) With the tank rotated 180 degrees, I wound up having to remove the cutoff valve on the fuel line. It was too close to the battery for my liking. I'll just have to drain the tank in order to change the fuel filter during the condition inspection.

    4) With all the fussing getting the tank in, I didn't notice that one of my wires had hopped on top of the tank and wound up getting riveted into one of the cross members on top of the tank. Fortunately it was the main hot wire and went straight to ground, blowing the inline fuse that's right at the battery. Easy to diagnose and fix - snip, snip, put a new connector end to the line, re-attach and tape.* I write fortunately in that it was immediate and demanded attention. If it had been another wire it might not have been as obvious.

    5) No leaks!

    6) To measure the fuel level, I'll have to lift the tail to flying position. With the tail down it fills the tube to the full level with just two gallons. This isn't a problem, as I put the tail up to measure the oil. On cross-country flights I'll know how much fuel is in the tank when I land, as I'll be measuring it in flight.

    7) Now it's time to clean everything (the only way to properly get all the dirt, oil, etc., off of the aircraft is when it's apart) and put it back together.

    8) My external charging access wire for the battery works great, and is hard to spot if one doesn't know what to look for.

    * When I wired the aircraft it was with troubleshooting in mind, so I left excess wire in the aircraft, and put connectors coming off of the panel rather than going straight through. Everything is labeled, of course, on both ends.
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

  5. #965

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    Oh, here's the end results:



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  6. #966

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    Wings are back on, she's in rig....and as predicted, that great flying weather during the teardown and re-assembly process has turned to sit-and-wait.

    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

  7. #967

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    Very variable winds + hot day = classic landing!



    (A little less than three minutes)
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  8. #968

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    I haven't added much to the thread because I've been working with Ron Wade getting his and Don's aircraft ready for Oshkosh. Apparently they thought highly enough of my little Babette that they asked if I could give a hand...which is sort of intimidating, since they made the give-away Cub last year, have had more than one aircraft on the cover of SportAviation (the Rat Cub is the latest example), etc., etc.

    I warned them that while I'm not very good, I am slow - but they didn't seem bothered by it.

    Anyhow, things I've learned:

    The corollary to "Pretty don't make it fly," is "but it sells aircraft."

    Drill bits also come in number and letter sizes, which smells of the Metric system to me, but it's really Freedom units.

    There is a gauge to help resolve this into fractions.

    Bucking rivets isn't rocket science, but it's not child's play, either.

    If it seems really complicated and hard, chances are there is a tool that I am unaware of that will make it simple and easy.

    Things I knew but were brought home to me:

    Being ignorant is a-okay; one gains far more respect by admitting they don't know what to do and asking for help.

    Wiring is of the Devil. Anything electrical probably involves Dark Forces.

    Nothing says one is really making progress like a little blood.

    All aircraft speak in their own language. Once you learn what it's trying to tell you things go much, much smoother.

    [edit]

    Not to say that I'm not continuing to improve my airplane. A new, smaller oil cooler arrived, and I'm going to figure out a good way to mount it to the fuselage - that big sucker hanging off of the engine sure does cause a lot of sway to the engine.

    The horizontal stab support tubes are secured to the horizontal stab by rivnuts and screw head bolts. I'm going to remove them and just have bolts going through the gusset and tubes.
    Last edited by Frank Giger; 07-21-2019 at 09:22 PM.
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

  9. #969

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    Whelp, this last Saturday I had an engine out and had to put my little Babette into the trees.

    The FAA man and myself figured that during the hammering turbulence I wound up in that the fuel connector on the bottom of the tank that goes to the sump broke (I probably kicked it), so she went into stealth mode.

    The choices were: 1) Road with cars on it, 2) Power lines, and 3) 50 foot tall Alabama pines.

    I performed an okay landing at the top of the trees and she fell out right next to the road (I wanted to be close to it, as I knew she'd need a trailer to get out of there).

    Some stitches to my head where the goggles dug my glasses into my eyebrow and a broken rib were what I came away with - a testament to the force absorption of tube-and-gusset construction.

    Left wings are okay, tail feathers okay, a lot of hardware and tubing re-useable. Longerons are all needing replacement, cowl is toast, and the right wings pretzeled and took all the crash for me. The engine is iffy - one of the valve covers is pretty bent in, so I'll have to tear her down to see if anything cracked.

    The prop made it through without a scratch, which is incredible.

    So after this rib heals up I get to exercise the statement "if I had to rebuild her, there's some things I'd do better."
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

  10. #970
    DaleB's Avatar
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    Frank,

    Very sorry to hear of your mishap, and I hope you heal quickly. Take care fo yourself, and at least you know you'll have something to keep you busy during the winter.

    Dale
    Measure twice, cut once...
    scratch head, shrug, shim to fit.

    Flying an RV-12. I am building a Fisher Celebrity, slowly.

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